


Manufactured Domesticity

by blondcockerel



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Blood, Caretaking, Grooming, M/M, Mental Instability, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Obsessive Behavior, wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 15:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4526712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondcockerel/pseuds/blondcockerel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eddie catches Waylon and gives his bride-to-be, of all the things one would expect The Groom to give - some TLC after their long day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Manufactured Domesticity

**Author's Note:**

> Marginally under-edited. I've been working on this fic on and off for a few months, and finished it at 3 in the morning. I'm not the best at endings so... fee free to keep all this in mind. If you notice something, please send a comment and I'll be a good sport about it.

Waylon felt sick. To be completely honest, he'd felt that way since the moment he'd torn himself away from the Morphogenic Engine. It felt like a part of himself had been torn out of the back of his skull, and now it was calling to him from behind every corner, as a faint whispering just below the surface of his consciousness or as a flickering over his eyes when he saw another form of death incarnate approaching from around the corner.

More specifically than that, though, Waylon was nauseous. He could only take the blood and the gore for so long before it closed up his throat and made him cold. If it weren't for the promise he'd made to Lisa and their boys, he'd just say 'fuck it' to blowing the whistle and contribute to the bodies and bodies' worth of blood slicking the floors.

It was disgusting. Waylon had slipped in a puddle that used to be a part of someone when he'd been stumbling away from the Groom. He'd crawled into this cabinet because the sticky dampness and the sheer smell of it, if they weren't bad enough themselves, served as a constant reminder that people had died. People like him, who didn't deserve any of this. He couldn't panic out in the open, and so, there he was.  
The darkness was soothing, in a way that the darkness of the rest of the asylum wasn't. The warmth of his shaking body as he tried his best not to make any noise had slowly filled the cabinet space. Having heat all around him made him feel more whole; less like he was missing something. In that darkness, he didn't know, in any distinct way, where the space around him ended and he began. Eventually, his breathing began to slow. He could've almost fallen asleep there, in the small darkness of himself.

That was, until a heavy set of footsteps reminded him of where he was. He wasn't safe, wouldn't be for a very long time after this. Most pressingly of all, the Groom was still chasing him, following the scent of his blood and fear that he seemed uniquely attuned to.

"Darling," he called, as he entered the room, "I've already forgiven you, you know. Even the purest girls can be... corrupted, when all they have for company are filthy whores."

Christ, Waylon thought, what the fuck was this guy's damage? He curled up, quietly, in the dark cabinet. The Groom wasn't going to catch him again. Not again. He wasn't going to die on that fucking table.  
There was a chuckle. An unnervingly close chuckle to his hiding spot. "Darling, darling, darling," Waylon would scream if Lisa ever called him darling again, "This is a silly game of yours we've been playing. Letting me follow a trail of bloody footsteps, like rose petals, to your bower."

Shit, he was an idiot. Of course he left prints. With his bleeding leg, with all the blood he'd walked through.

The door creaked open, and Waylon covered his eyes. He didn't want to see.

"And here I am; and here you are, too, darling. Take those lovely hands from your face. I want to see you."

Waylon shook his head, and a pair of hands rougly yanked Waylon's wrists away. "Listen to me! I've been... trying... to be patient with you." Eddie snarled, "Now let me look at this leg of yours. Oh, darling... I'd never hurt you like this. I wouldn't want shock getting in the way of all the fun we could have. I'd only cut you when you were good and ready for it. But this can't be all your blood, now, can it? Hmm, no, I don't think so. Well, I must say, you look gorgeous like this, my love."

Eddie cupped Waylon's face for a moment, and his hand came away red. "But I want your skin to be as alabaster white as your dress for our wedding." He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the sedative spray again. "You've proven I can't trust you to behave, so I'm afraid I'll need to give you a little something. Just enough to let you rest."

He sprayed Waylon's face, and everything went dark again.

* * *

When Waylon woke, he was warm. Surprisingly so. He felt like he was floating - his limbs were light and he wondered in that moment if he was dead, and his nightmare was over. Then he opened his eyes.

He lay in a bathtub, a long basin filled with steaming water. It had been stained amber by all the red on his skin - 'get some red on you', indeed - and yet, he must not have been there long, because otherwise the water would have gone cold. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved, that he hadn't stayed unconscious for long enough that the Groom could do anything with him, or to dread, because he'd now be awake for whatever it was the man had in store.

Eddie took that moment to strut into the room with a spring in his steps. He carried with him a couple of bottles, a comb, and a towel; and he'd rolled up his sleeves to the elbow. "Ah, you're awake! Wonderful. I was afraid I'd given you too much..." He shrugged. "Women all handle their drinks a little differently, you know? And you are such a delicate creature, darling, not like all of those vulgar - but let's not discuss the others, shall we? This is a moment for you and I alone."

He kneeled next to Waylon's head, and ran a hand delicately through his blood-encrusted hair. "You're not like them. You're special. You're stronger than them - they didn't have the will to struggle through - for me, you understand. They weren't devoted to perservering for me and for the children we'd have together." His hand dipped down below the water, to press against Waylon's belly, and whisper the next few words into his ear. "Not like you, my love. We'll have such a beautiful family."

Waylon shrank away from Eddie's touch. He still couldn't find his voice, and even if he could, he wouldn't know what to say that wouldn't make the man just pull out his shiv and stab him then and there. Even the small, non-verbal protest of his movement caused Eddie's hand to press down just that little bit harder. Waylon grit his teeth.

"Now, let's get you cleaned up, darling." Eddie brought his other hand into the water, and cupped it between his palms. When he emptied his hands over Waylon's head, he shuddered with discomfort and breathed out sharply through his nose.

Eddie laughed, and doused Waylon's hair in more water. After a moment's inspection, he picked up one of the bottles from the floor beside the basin and popped the cap open, squeezing out a blob of shampoo.

As his hands began to work the shampoo into Waylon's scalp, gently teasing out the tangles of blood from Waylon's hair, Waylon himself was torn by the contrast between the Groom now, and the man he'd been when he'd been chasing Waylon. This was an intimate moment, and Eddie's gentle massaging sent pleasant tingles down his neck; but the intimacy was poisoned whenever Waylon thought beyond the gentle pulling at the roots of his hair and the faint, clean smell of generic shampoo. It was someone's blood that was being washed out of his hair, someone that Eddie had probably killed, like he was going to be killed. It wasn't Lisa who was doing this, like she occasionally did when Waylon got sick; it was a deranged lunatic who'd murdered... God only knows how many people had died by his blade.  
Bile rose in the back of Waylon's throat. He tried to swallow it.

Eddie's hands dipped back into the water, and he rinsed out the soap from Waylon's hair, slowly, making sure it was clean. Perhaps this gentleness, the deftness of his hands, was what made him able to make such beautiful dresses. Waylon shuddered again at the thought, at even being capable of thinking anything Eddie had done was beautiful.  
However, it seemed strangely fitting. As long as it fit with his idea of what a domestic couple did, the man would be as gentle a husband as he needed to be. God, this must have been how he lured them in. The girls he killed. The wholesome sweetheart, the chaste sweetheart, the sweetheart that would come into the premarital bed with a twisted, deluded intention and leave covered in blood.

He was surprised by a pair of lips pressing themselves onto his wet forehead. Eddie smiled into the kiss, and looked down into Waylon's eyes as Waylon looked up, startled. "You must anticipate so much from me, to shudder like that. I want to know you. I want you so much, my darling-" He looked down, past Waylon's stomach to his limp cock, "-but we can't, not yet."

He kissed Waylon's forehead again, and picked up the comb.

Waylon should have been more distressed than he was by Eddie's words - but the eagerness in his voice, the urgency that pulled his voice into something close to a whisper sent another not-unpleasant shiver down his spine and more disgust to ring out in Waylon's mind. You're disgusting, this is disgusting, how can it be that you're not disgusted by his sick fantasies and his plans?!

Yet, he stayed still as Eddie brought the comb through Waylon's hair. There was nothing he could do - his leg still was punctured, and Eddie could just as easily drown him as bathe him. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe there'd be an opportunity to leave eventually. Eddie had to sleep at some point, surely. Although he had to be vigilant, because the pleasant pulling of the comb and the left-over effects of the sedative and the warmth of the water made his body melt and his eyelids heavy.

"You've relaxed." Eddie's hand trailed down to rest on Waylon's collarbone. "That's good." He squeezed Waylon's shoulder, a reassurance rather than a threat, and picked up with his other hand a washcloth and bar of soap.

Waylon watched as Eddie's hands dipped into the water and rubbed suds from the soap, before deftly scooping the suds up in the washcloth. He moved behind Waylon again, and Waylon could feel a sudden warmth on the back of his neck, and hear water pouring down from the washcloth over the edge of the basin of the bath and onto the floor. Eddie scrubbed gentle circles into Waylon's skin, behind his ears and along the line of his chin, sending yet more tingles through Waylon's spine and up to his clouded mind.

Suddenly, though, the Groom dipped forward, his hand falling to Waylon's chest, where the circles of movement became broader, and slower. "God, you're such a perfect girl for me. So beautiful. Even now. Imagine how you'll look soon. When you can fill out a dress with your hips and your firm little breasts. Imagine."

Waylon would rather have not.

The rest of Eddie's bathing was less eventful. He cleaned, fastidiously, occasionally asking Waylon to shift this way or that (with Waylon quickly obliging, not wanting to rouse the Groom's anger). The only exception came when Eddie's hands came to rest on Waylon's leg.

"What are we going to do about this, darling? If you hadn't been such an idiot woman then we wouldn't have to deal with this in the first place. But oh, you know me, darling, I'm a patient man. I think I'll be able to whip out the old Boy Scout first aid."

Eddie took Waylon's leg, and the washcloth, and began to rub the blood away from the skin around it. Waylon grit his teeth; all the skin around the wound felt swollen, and at this point he knew he had some kind of shit from the blood and dirt of the asylum.

Eddie clucked his tongue with disappointment. "Look at what we could have avoided if you hadn't gone and run away with me, your head full of these... ideas. That I'm not good for you. That I mean to harm you. I honestly don't know where you've been getting them. From your friends, perhaps. Well, it's not hard to cut off contact with those friends who are so poisonous."

Friends? Yeah, all of those people that Eddie killed in front of Waylon might as well have been friends. Shared hardship and all that. Not hard to cut off contact with a couple dozen corpses. God, Waylon wished he hadn't been so stupid, if only he'd kept running, but no. He was going to end up dead.

"My love, look how red you are beneath your skin. It's beautiful." The side of Eddie's thumb caressed the edge of Waylon's puncture, and the water in the basin sloshed as Waylon squirmed in discomfort. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. But however shall we clean this?"

He picked up something else off the floor, another of the bottles. "A bit of hydrogen peroxide should clean this nicely."

Waylon screamed as his wound was filled with burning. It felt like the Groom had placed a hot ember under his skin, and the heat of the pain radiated out from his toes shooting up his thigh. His crying evoked little sympathy from Eddie. "You shouldn't have disobeyed, if you couldn't handle the price."

He tore open a box, which was filled with little packets. He ripped one open and soaked up the hydrogen peroxide with the gauze inside. He ripped open another, and stuffed it into the puncture, filling it and finally wrapping it. "Now there we are. Honestly, was that worth so much crying?"

Fuck yes. All that shit did was remind him of how soon Waylon was going to lose his leg, if he couldn't get away. He was going to cry like a goddamned baby if he damn well pleased.

Eddie finally picked up the thin, ratty asylum towel, and began to dry Waylon off, starting with his leg, and helping him to stand so Waylon could clean the parts of himself that Eddie was too repulsed by to touch.

"Now, my love, let me carry you to our bed. It isn't our wedding, but I don't care about the impropriety. You can trust me to restrain myself."

Oh sure.

Eddie picked Waylon up, scooping him into his arms and treating him as delicately as a piece of fragile china. He carried him through the asylum, from the baths, down the steps and out into the courtyard. He inhaled the air deeply. The rain and thick fog had abated, in favor of a last few clear hours of starlit night. The first signs of the rising sun were reaching out from the east, pink glow backlighting the intimate crook of the two hills' intersection. There was a town in those hills. If Waylond were able to make a break for it, he could make it - find a car, maybe fucking Blair's car, and just book it.

He couldn't run away like this, though, and the adrenaline had trickled out of him in the warm waters of the bath. He had nothing that was keeping him going. The heavy haze of a fever was starting to build in his mind, and, he realized lazily, that meant that he definitely had an infection. From someone else's blood. Perfect.

As they paused there, both watching the sun rise, Waylon turned his head and saw that the church was on fire. Good. It only offered men like him false hope that there was a chance of escape. Eddie followed his gaze and held Waylon closer. "You won't burn. I wouldn't let you be disfigured like that, darling."

In the warmth that lay between them, as Waylon warded off the last of the evening's chill and allowed himself to curl closer, the whispering of the Morphogenic engine scratching itself against the back of his skull seemed to quiet. The part of him that was missing had returned, or become so full of fog that he could no longer observe the absence. Maybe this was where he belonged.

It was where he belonged for now, at least, until he could escape. He couldn't forget that. He couldn't forget Lisa and his boys. His sons.

* * *

 If only they had paused some other place; been inside when the fire began. That was when the clean-up team had arrived from Murkoff to take care of the mess. Take care of it they did - and beneath the indeterminate tangle of mangled flesh, riddled with bullet wounds, Eddie and Waylon's blood ran together. One last promise - one last threat- fulfilled.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm planning on making a podfic of this, when I have a chance. The original idea of this was to make an ASMR fanfiction, but upon rereading it once or twice and not feeling anything from the description alone, I've decided that aspect of it can only be truly expressed in podfic format.


End file.
